To Meet You Again
by bluedawn01
Summary: A lonely Eleventh Doctor wanders back to Barcelona, intent on reliving some of his most cherished memories when he runs into three awfully familiar looking people that most certainly should not exist. At least not in this universe. Can they lead him back to a now equally lonely Rose Tyler and can the two of them work out a new life...complete with a noseless dog, Jack and Donna?
1. Chapter 1

"Are you sure we've got the right spot?" asked a good-looking brown-haired, green-eyed young man who looked to be about twenty-five, turning toward the other man with him.

The tall, imposing slightly older figure beside him, gangly limbs and dark-hair rolled his eyes. "Since when am I ever wrong?" he asked, sarcastically.

"All the time," the other man replied, sticking his hands in his pockets and turning around to walk backwards, grinning broadly.

"Hardly my fault," the older one grumbled, scowling slightly. "She's got a mind of her own."

"So does mine, but at least she gets me places on time," he replied, laughing.

"You sweet-talk her too much," retorted the hazel-eyed man. "If you spent half the time actually working on the console as you did charming her, you wouldn't have to call me for help all the time."

"It's not my fault you got all the technical genes this go'round," whined the brown-haired boy, bouncing up on his toes.

The taller man opened his mouth to reply but it seemed the young blonde with them had had enough. "Ok, ok. That's enough, boys. Yes, this is the right planet, yes this is the right time. Good job, Will," she said, smiling kindly at the hazel-eyed man. "Now. Can we go find Mum's present and hurry back? She's going to figure out something's up," the girl said,

"Oh, please. She knew something was up before we left. Never can surprise that woman," the younger man responded, rolling his eyes at the girl and turning back to walk forwards again.

"Oi! Leave her be. She's right, let's get a move on," the older man defended. "Lead the way, Sarah. Your show," he said, glowering at the brown-haired one.

The girl lit up and charged off, leaving the two men to follow closely behind her.

-

The Doctor stepped from his TARDIS out into the bright, warm sunlight, walking toward the bright, sun-filled park that was his destination. Everything was just as he remembered it, not that he had been expecting any different, but being here...maybe it was too much. Maybe he should just go back. This was a silly idea.

He turned to head back toward the TARDIS when he felt a funny twinge inside his head. That was odd. He tried to mentally trace the source of his sudden discomfort but came up with nothing. Frowning, he pulled out his screwdriver to scan the area. He sighed. Atypical signature, three lifeforms of undetermined origin and intent walking the planet. Undetermined origin? Even for a Time Lord with all the knowledge of the universe at his disposal?

He'd better check it out.

A bollocks "vacation" this was going to be.

He'd come here to sulk and mourn not to investigate a grand universal mystery. Couldn't the universe ever just shove off and leave him alone with his sorrow, even just this once?

It seemed the answer was no. Something...disasters, crises, companions...sometimes all three at once were always popping up to keep him from his well-deserved grief. Sometimes for the better and sometimes...well. He didn't need to think about that.

Of course it was one of those 'for the better's' that had him here on this bright, happy planet full of memories and happier times, attempting to wallow at the moment.

He'd been lost, adrift, alone and angry in the wake of the Time War, firmly ensconced in his guilt and horror and the universe poked its nose in his grief and had intervened.

The universe had given him Rose.

She had taught him how to laugh and live and, well, fine. How to love. Might as well admit it to himself since he'd never admitted it to her. She'd given him a reason to live, a reason to fight, and a reason to rekindle the fire in his hearts.

And then she had been taken from him and, in saying goodbye, after hurried words and not enough time...never enough time, he hadn't been allowed his grief then. The universe and Donna had seen to that. Then Martha and the Judoon. Then the Master...then, then, then.

He'd never been allowed his time. So instead he wore his blue suit of mourning and slowly bled out without her. Maybe if the universe had given him time to process, time to let go, time for closure, he could have...

Feh. Who was he kidding. He would never forget her. Her name would be the one on his lips with the dying breath of his final body.

And then, when he'd given up all hope, she had done the impossible and returned to him, older, wiser and perhaps a bit sadder but beautiful and ihis/i. The universe intervened! Silly Time Lord. He'd never had time to mourn because she had been coming back all along!

And now...he was going to tell her. Time to end that sentence.

Right after they saved the world.

And then he lost her again...this time by his own hand. He left her with the lucky half of him that could give her what he never could. He'd watched in a pained silence of his own creation as his twin said the words he'd always wanted to say and then she'd kissed him. That him. The wrong him. And he felt the gaping wound in his hearts, the one that had slowly begun to heal with her hand holding his, reopen and he'd left...left them to their life together. Left them to their love. Left them to live the life he wanted. Left ihim/i to give her the life she deserved.

And in the process, left him to his grief.

And the universe had been keeping him busy ever since. He still reached for her hand, still listened for her laughter, still craved her touch, even so many years and another body later. He wondered what she would think of his green eyes, of his ungraceful gait, of his floppy hair.

She always had liked that hair.

Did the other him go grey? Salt and pepper? Bald? He shivered. Horrible thought, there. How many slaps had he garnered in the span of a human life spent near Jackie Tyler, shagging her only daughter?

Oh.

Did they do that? Well, surely...both human and if that kiss on the beach had been any indication...

He tried to quash the intense jealousy that rose up in him.

Did they get married? He tugged at his left ring finger, imagining his former manly, hairy hand and what it would have looked like with a human wedding ring on it. He tried to keep away the wish that it had been his manly, hairy hand instead.

Did they have children? Grandchildren? Did Jackie spoil them? Did they look like him, that him?

Did they manage to grow their own TARDIS and see the parallel stars before their short human lives ran out?

He sighed. He'd gone a bit spare after that...without Rose, without Donna, without, without, without. Companions had come and gone, none staying too long...the pull of time and space apparently not worth the crazy alien that came with it. He tried to care.

He didn't. He'd had it all...the girl, the best friend and, for a brief moment, the brother and it had all been torn from him.

And the damn universe wouldn't give him a break to mourn it.

He'd been running around, saving the universe just as they had, just as she'd have wanted him to do...although, of late, it had seemed like the universe hadn't quite needed as much saving.

He'd had more than a few moments in the past several decades when he'd followed a knotted timeline, work of the Time Lords, his sole duty now...only to discover that it had righted itself. Perhaps the universe was learning to function on its own.

Or perhaps it was trying to give him his requested mourning time. That's what he'd wanted, right? To mourn her, to forget her?

Well...he'd just ignore it. A mystery was always better, right?

And maybe, just maybe...he could get through this one without thinking of her.

Too much.

Of course, that's why he'd come here in the first place. To think of her. Why else would he have come back to sunny Barcelona less than 24 hours after they'd been here the first time? He'd just wanted to come here and remember...to sit on the bench where he'd sat the last time so, so long ago and so, so in love with her and watched her joyfully romp with a play pen full of psychic, noseless puppies. To think of the way she had shyly gazed up at him, wide hazel eyes beaming, all tentative flirts and hesitant touches as they tried to figure each other out once again. To remember their playful argument over dogs on the TARDIS as she'd dumped a particularly wriggly white and brown furball with peanut-butter eyebrows and huge gooey brown eyes in his lap and begged him to let her keep it.

How he'd managed to resist that pouting pink lip and pleading hazel eyes he'd never know. It was a good thing he'd never managed to bring her here when he'd been all leather and ears, he thought. That him had never been able to refuse her anything. He'd most certainly have a dog now.

He sighed, pushing away those memories of a happier times and a happier him away and, frowning, checked his screwdriver again. The signal was leading him into the park after all and toward the puppies to boot.

In fact, there they were...the backs of them anyway.

His frowned deepened.

Sitting on ihis/i bench.

More than a little annoyed, he huffily ran the green light over them from his distance away. Still no more information. All three were shielded very heavily and he couldn't pick up any traces from them. Even their biological signals were being blocked somehow. Whoever had designed their shields had done an incredible job, he thought begrudgingly.

He edged closer to them and, suddenly, he was very certain that at least one of his hearts stopped beating.

Sitting in the playpen, with the fluffy white and brown puppy, Rose's puppy, was Rose Tyler.

What?

His mind spun and he staggered back to lean against a tree. No, no, no. How could Rose be here? Had he come too early? He was sure he'd gotten the date right...had checked and rechecked, making sure he wouldn't have to suffer the pain of running into himself (because that was always irritating).

And making sure he wouldn't have to suffer the pain of seeing Rose.

Suddenly the girl's eyes shot up to meet his. He watched as emotions flitted across her expressive face, so like Rose's, and he studied her closely, unable to break her steadfast gaze. Her hair was blonde and, like Rose, it seemed to be dyed that way. Her face was a bit more angular than Rose's but other than that she was the spitting image of one Rose Tyler. Except for her eyes. Oh, her eyes. They were bright blue instead of hazel. In fact, they almost reminded him of...

Oh.

Oh no.

He watched as the girl straightened and spoke to the two men sitting on the bench in front of her, glancing up at him nervously. From his position partly hiding behind the tree, he couldn't see either of their faces and, if he was honest with himself, he was a bit afraid of what he might see there. He watched as both men, tall and lanky, disappeared off into the crowd toward the bustling city center. The taller of the two squeezed the girl's shoulder as he left.

Alone now, she raised her eyes back to his and gently beckoned for him to come closer.


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah sat down in the pen of puppies and let the little creatures tumble and wobble their way over and around her, laughing with delight.

Her oldest brother smiled indulgently at her and the other brother (always ready for fun) laughed, immediately climbing in with her, tossling her hair and placing the peanut-butter eyebrowed puppy directly on her lap.

"You're sure about this, Sarah?" Will asked, watching her carefully. His younger sister tended to be right about these kinds of things, a knowledge of these domestics he could never quite get a handle on. He blamed his father or, as his father used to so often point out, his father's previous form who he tended to take after. And for that, his father generally blamed his mother.

"Yeah," she said, quietly, studying the puppy in her hands very closely. "She and Dad used to talk about coming here all the time, remember? He said he always meant to come back here and get her that puppy." _This puppy, actually,_ she thought to herself, feeling the tentative telepathic bonds of the puppy that had already started bonding to her mother the previous day (in the timeline, anyway) reaching out to her familiar-feeling mind.

"I know," Will said. "But you don't think it will be too much?"

"Oh, c'mon, Will," Ian piped up, standing, shaking a puppy off his trainer and climbing out of the pen to sit beside his brother on the bench. "This whole 'doors and windows' thing is too much. You know she's going to spend a month, tops, living in a normal house and then get bored out of her skull. Mum can't sit still any more than Dad could."

Will considered him. "Could be," he finally offered.

"She misses him," Sarah said from the pen.

"Oh I know, SJ," Ian said and all three siblings bowed their heads for a moment. "We all do. But this is going overboard. Mid-life crisis or something. Weelll, I suppose someone who's practically immortal can't have a midlife crisis but anyway, how do you think her TARDIS is going to react to having a DOG in a month when she's bored and starts travelling again?"

Will turned to Sarah, waiting for her answer.

"I don't think She'll mind. She let Dad have bats once. And, She puts up with having YOU in there most of the time," she said, sticking her tongue in her teeth and grinning at him. "Anyway, I think he's cute," Sarah said, holding up the puppy Ian had placed in her lap. "She's lonely and it's company." Ian rolled his eyes.

"Yes, yes, puppies are cute. But the point still stands. I can just see it, next family get-together. 'Oh, hello Mr. Evil Dictator! Can you please just hold up your megalomaniac plot for a moment? My puppy needs to go out'," he said, mimicking a high female voice.

Both Sarah and Will snorted. As if their mum would EVER sound like that.

"Cut it out, Ian," Will said, evenly. Ian could be a real arse to Sarah sometimes.

"You said it yourself. She's lonely," Ian pressed, unwilling to give this up yet. "And there's a very simple solution to that."

Sarah's eyes widened and Will hissed at him. "It's none of our business, Ian. That's between her and him. And it's not simple at all. Who knows how long it's been or what he looks like or who he's got travelling with him now!"

"Exactly! We don't know! We've never known! Aren't you the least bit curious? Don't we have a right to meet him? And him us? And, for that matter, why do you think Dad insisted on coming back to this universe in the first place? He had it in mind the whole time. He didn't want her to be alone!" Ian practically shouted. It wasn't fair.

"Ian," Will threatened softly. "Not the time or the place."

"Oh, c'mon, Will!" Ian scoffed. "It's whatever time and place we want it to be, remember?"

"What if he's changed, Ian? What if he's moved on? What if he's got someone new in his life? What would we do then? Mum would be crushed. I know you want to meet him -"

"What if he hasn't? What if he's alone? Dad told us what a mess he was without Mum. Maybe the other him's a mess, too," Ian retorted. It wasn't fair, having a dad who wasn't his dad floating around the universe somewhere and not meeting him. It wasn't fair that they'd lost their father and now had to watch as their mother put on a brave face and pretended that her heart wasn't broken.

Windows and doors. Honestly.

Will opened his mouth to argue with Ian for a moment when he noticed Sarah looking over his shoulder intently, her face a shade whiter than normal.

"You ok, SJ?" he asked gently, twisting around to follow her gaze. All he saw was a large tree.

"Yeah," Sarah said after a moment, shaking her head slightly. "Why don't you and Ian head into town and pick something else up for Mum? Ian at least owes her something shiny. And pink. I need a bit more time to figure out which of these puppies is the one," she lied. If that was who she thought it was behind that tree (and it was, she knew) the boys needed to go away so she could speak with him.

Will settled a piercing look on her, as if he knew she wasn't telling him the whole truth. Well, to be fair, she wasn't. But she didn't think either man was ready to deal with the situation in which they were very quickly going to find themselves.

"Ok," he said, slowly. "I'll take the menace into town," Will responded, rolling his eyes at Ian's protest.

"Take care of yourself and _don't_ wander off," Ian huffed and spun on his trainer heel toward the path.

Will squeezed her shoulder as he walked by. "We'll be back in an hour."

Waiting until both of her brothers were out of sight, Sarah finally raised her eyes up to meet those of the haunted, green-eyed man she'd spotted leaning against the tree watching them and beckoned him forward.

* * *

The Doctor hesitated as he stared into the bright blue eyes of his past (although they held a much softer, kinder light than he thought his ever had). He didn't have to do this. Didn't have to face this. He could still run. He could leg it back to his TARDIS right now and escape the facts staring at him as practically the spitting image of the girl who still haunted his dreams. He could pretend like he had never come here, never seen this beautiful child that is/was/could have been/sort of his.

But she looked so much like Rose and he couldn't run away from Rose. Not this time. Not again. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and then promptly slouched forward to meet the most terrifying being he was certain he'd ever encounter.

"Hello, Doctor," the girl said, watching him kindly. She was so like Rose, his brain screamed.

"Erm, hello," he stammered. After a moment of gawking at her awkwardly, he stuck his hand out to her. "And um, you are?"

"I think you know who I am," she said, tilting her head to the side slightly and, oh Rassilon. Sticking her tongue in her teeth. "Sarah Jacqueline Tyler," the girl responded, apparently taking pity on him and shaking his outstretched hand gently. The second her skin contacted with his, her shields shimmered and bent, letting him sense her fully for the first time.

Another Time Lord. Well, Time Lady, to be precise. A young one but bright and shining and achingly familiar. He reeled back from her for a moment, dropping her hand as though he had been burned. Once he had felt her mind she was there, shining bright in the spot where millions of other Gallifreyans had once resided. And through his tiny connection with her, he could feel the minds of two others, her brothers, farther away linked to his with a faint familial tie and a then he felt a third, similar but different, even further away but bright, golden and beautifully ethereal.

Rose.

So, three children and Rose (oh, beautiful, beautiful, Rose) but where was...he reached tentatively out with his mind, searching for a shadow of his own mind only to meet nothing. He pressed a little harder, remembering the Death Zone.

"He's gone," Sarah interrupted his thoughts, softly. She'd let him process all of that in silence and hoped that her brothers had been distracted enough with bickering not to pick up on his light telepathic brush. She had never been alone in her mind, born into a family with two older brothers of the same subspecies and two unique parents but she tried to imagine what it must be like for him to experience connection like this, connection that he thought he would never feel again, for the first time after so long.

"Oh," the Doctor responded. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," she answered just as quietly. More empathetic than either of her brothers (a trait inherited from her mother) she could feel how genuinely sorry he was and how confused and lonely and desperately hopeful he was in meeting her. "Can you give me a mo'? I need to buy this puppy and then we can talk." No one else would buy this puppy now, actually, since it had already begun its bonding process, but this would buy her a moment to gather her thoughts before facing this man, this stranger, really, who was-but-wasn't her father.

"Sure, sure," the Doctor answered, gesturing to the bench nearby, the one that had been his target coming here in the first place.

He watched in silence as the girl burnished a credit stick at the puppy vendor, rewarded with a shiny red collar and leash and a squirming, wriggling mass of white and brown.

He always had meant to come back here and buy her that puppy.

She walked back over to his bench, leading the pup and sat on the other end, the dog content to climb over her shoelaces and gnaw at the knots there. "So -" he began at the same time she said, "So -"

They both laughed awkwardly she gestured for him to continue. The Doctor blew out a heavy breath and steepled his long fingers, elbows resting on his knees. "So, Sarah Jacqueline Tyler. That's a good name. I like it. And you go by Sarah, then?"

"I do," she said, smiling. Always talking about the unimportant things first. That was a familiar tactic of her father's. "My brothers sometimes call me SJ."

"And your brothers are..." he trailed off, unsure he wanted to know and yet desperately curious for any glimpse she was willing to give him into the life his metacrisis had gotten to lead with the woman he loved. Kids...if he'd had kids...what would he have named them?

Well, a boy he probably would have named...

"My oldest brother is Peter Wilfred Tyler, but we all call him Will. He's named after Aunt Donna's grandad. Dad always said he looks a lot like his ninth regeneration did but with 'better ears, a smaller nose and hazel eyes'. Mum claims all three of those," she laughed. "And my other brother is Ian James Tyler. He looks a lot like Dad did, but he's got - oh," she said, trailing off and peering at him intently all of a sudden. The Doctor shifted slightly under her piercing gaze. "Well, he's got your eyes, actually. Whoa! That's wizard! How'd that happen?" Sarah wondered out loud.

The Doctor, still processing all the things Sarah had chattered at him (apparently she'd inherited that body's gift of gob), answered automatically, "It's not uncommon for Time Lord offspring to take on characteristics of past or future regenerations from either parent." In fact, if the children had been loomed, the parents could have chosen specifically which traits to include and which to leave aside. However, he assumed these children had been born naturally and it wasn't surprising to him at all that Rose had steered her children toward looking like those two versions of him, although the green eyes were certainly a surprise. "Parental traits can show up in any of the children's regenerations, so you better watch out. I've got some doozies in my past. Next time you could end up with curly hair. Or a penchant for outrageously colored coats. Or looking like Jackie," he finished, fiddling with his bowtie nervously as his automatic chatter ran out.

Three children. How long had they been here? He opened his mouth to ask her but the girl's brow was furrowed and her nose was scrunched in the way Rose's always did when she was thinking about something particularly hard and the expression was so endearing (and painfully familiar) that his question died on his lips. "Will's the only one of us who's regenerated so far but he came out looking exactly the same. Dad said it had to do with the human bits in our genetic make-up; something about the human mind and its inability to accept fundamental change. Or he might have just been making fun of Mum. I dunno. But anyway," she brightened and the thoughtful expression fell away, "Ian's had a grand time teasing him about the fact that he's going to look forty for, like, forever," she laughed. The Doctor, however, had blanched at 'regenerated'.

"Your brother had regenerated? What happened? Is he all right? Was the transformation ok? What about regeneration sickness? And where was your father when this happened?" he bellowed. "I can't believe I - he - let my - his son...I mean," he stumbled again.

"It's ok, it's ok," Sarah soothed, seeing him grow frantic. "Will's fine now. I was really young when it happened, so I'm not really sure about the details, but he's fine. Mum and Dad were there to help him and he's been right as rain for decades now."

"How old are you?" the Doctor asked, settling back down again, trying to rearrange his long, awkward limbs.

"Fifty-two," Sarah answered, sticking her chin into the air in a slightly defiant way he again recognized as Rose's.

Oh, still a Time Tot then, really. She was so very, very young by Gallifreyan standards. "And your brothers?"

"Ian's one hundred and twelve and Will's one-seventy-eight," she responded, sticking her tongue in her teeth again as she thought. "On a human scale," Sarah added as an afterthought.

"And how..." he took a deep breath. "How long have you been in this universe?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, not really. Rose had been here? And his metacrisis? Raised a family here, right here under his nose while he had been suffering all this time? A realization hit him and suddenly all the straightened out time messes he's stumbled upon for the past few decades didn't seem quite so mysterious.

The girl regarded him over the bridge of her nose for a moment and he was reminded that though she was young, she was still a Time Lady and a Time Lady with one of the most formidable mums (not to mention grandmums) he'd ever met. "That's not all my story to tell," she said slowly. "But we came here shortly before I was born."

He sighed heavily, feeling betrayed. But he had left them, hadn't he? Decided that they were better off in that parallel universe, with each other and far from him and swanned off without so much as a by-your-leave. Still, it hurt to know that they'd been here for so long mucking about this universe with their children and their TARDIS and...wait a tic. His head whipped up at stare at her.

"Did you say Aunt _Donna_?"


End file.
